BREXIT BLOCKERS
No naming and shaming over foreign staff
MINISTERS yesterday killed off the idea of firms being forced to publicly reveal how many foreign workers they employ, in the wake of a ferocious backlash.
Cabinet minister Michael Fallon said businesses could be made to ‘report their numbers’ to the Home Office to help establish areas where there is a shortage of British workers.
But he said this information would be kept private, and there was no plan for any company to be named and shamed into saying how many overseas workers they have.
Opposition MPs accused the Government of being in ‘disarray’.
Officials insisted it was not a U-turn and claimed the plans had been ‘wilfully misrepresented’ from the outset.
The idea – dubbed ‘repugnant’ by David Cameron’s ex-adviser Steve Hilton – surfaced at the Tory Party conference last week as part of a wider crackdown on mass immigration.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said there would be a consultation on requiring business to ‘ be clear about the proportion of their workforce which is international, as is the case in the US’.
Miss Rudd insisted it was not racist to want to control Britain’s borders or reduce immigration.
However, critics including business leaders leapt on the idea that the policy might amount to ‘foreign worker shaming’.
Yesterday, Mr Hilton said: ‘Why not announce that foreign workers will have numbers tattooed on their forearms? You might as well do the job of killing Britain’s reputation as an open, enterprise economy properly.’
Former education secretary Nicky Morgan – a critic of the Government since being sacked by Theresa May – said she agreed that the idea was ‘repugnant’, adding: ‘I think it’s a really inadvisable way to proceed.
‘I was surprised that Amber had put forward that proposal about the listing of foreign workers, because that’s not the Amber Rudd I know and worked alongside … The trouble with these sorts of policies is they send out a message about the party, about the way we want to approach people coming to this country.’
In the wake of the backlash, ministers yesterday reassured employers that the information would not be made public.
Defence Secretary Sir Michael told BBC Radio 5 live’s Pienaar’s Politics: ‘What I can absolutely rule out is that we will not be asking companies to list or publish or name or identify in any way the number of foreign workers they have.
‘We’re going to consult with business on how we can do more to encourage companies, to incentivise them, to look first at the British labour market and to offer these jobs to British people … before they import labour more cheaply from abroad.’
He said firms were already subject to a ‘resident labour market test’ for non-EU workers, but the Government wants to examine ‘whether we can get a better picture of exactly what the dependence on foreign workers is’.
Education Secretary Justine Greening told ITV’s Peston on Sunday the policy was ‘about collecting the right evidence if we are going to be able to respond to skills shortages’.
She added: ‘This is not data that will be published … absolutely no naming and shaming.’
A senior Home office source said criticism of the plan was ‘a wilful misinterpretation of one question in a consultation document’.
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said: ‘The Tories are in disarray following Amber Rudd’s worrying statement last week, contradicting each other as their policy falls apart at the seams.’
Last week, Miss Rudd defended the proposals, saying businesses had a ‘ responsibility to local employment’. She added that it was one of several schemes under consideration and ‘not something we’re definitely going to do’.
‘Data will not be published’